VISUALJOURNALIST

Charles Apple is a longtime news artist, graphics reporter, designer, editor and blogger. The former Focus page editor of the Orange County Register and graphics director of the Virginian-Pilot and the Des Moines Register, he spent five years as an international consultant and instructor. Currently, he’s deputy design director for the Houston Chronicle. He spends way too much time online. Read more ...

Geekazoid Friday

As you all know, my work is published every weekday as a “focus page” in the A section of the Orange County Register.

However, I had a bonus piece in Thursday’s gala, extra-large Thanksgiving Day edition: A gift guide for that scifi-lovin’, comic book-readin’ geek in your life.

And the funny thing is: I think I was more exited about this than I am about my usual work.

My piece appeared on page 20 of the Holiday Gift Guide:

And because I know so many visual journalists share similar interests, here ya go:

gifts FOR THE TOY COLLECTOR
Keepsakes for kids of all ages

BY CHARLES APPLEORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

—SPLURGEStar Trek hoodies

One of the biggest talkers this fall among genre lovers has been the new line of Star Trek: The Next Generation hoodies from ThinkGeek.

Available in “command” red, “operations” gold or “sciences” blue, these 80/20 cotton/polyester blend sweaters zip in front and — ThinkGeek swears — are washable in cold water. They come in sizes from small to 3X, but supply has already run short. So buy yours now … unless you know of a temporal anomaly that can send you back to October. Admit it: Now that you’ve seen this, you’ll never be able to live long and prosper without one.

Bonus: Don’t forget to order a comm badge to pin on the front. $19.99 from the same vendor: http://bit.ly/180FalJ

—MEDIUM PRICE
Barbie Catwoman by Mattel

Everybody — including rich orphans who dress up at night to go out and fight crime — loves Catwoman. And this new 1960s vintage-style Julie Newmar-esque Barbie Catwoman is the purrrrrrrrfect gift for any Dark Knight collector. If you don’t like super heroes and villains, just slap another outfit on her and tell everybody she’s Marlo Thomas in That Girl.

These figures move only at the hips and shoulders and neck, so they’re not as exquisitely posable as high-end action figures. And they certainly don’t have a lot of detail work.

But just check out the sweet price on these 12-inch-tall Titan series Marvel Comics heroes from Hasbro. For this kind of money, Santa can bring an entire army of super heroes — enough to give your delighted little geek thor hands on Christmas morning from opening all the extra packages. We’ve spotted Captain America, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Wolverine and a variety of Iron Men.

The mysterious 900-year-old time-traveling Anglophile Doctor celebrates his 50th anniversary on TV this month, and fans just can’t get enough of all the new merchandise. If you’re looking for a cheap stocking stuffer, try these cute 3-inch-tall collectible plastic figurines.

Each is boxed, so you don’t know which of the 11 doctors — or five special “chase figures” — you’ll get. Allons-y!

An old friend, Dewayne Matteson, points out this interesting Star Trek T-shirt design.

It’s a gorgeous design and lovely colors. But look a little closer at the artwork. Longtime Star Trek fans will spot it right away.

The silhouette of the ship is what fans refer to as the Enterprise-A — the original starship commanded by Capt. Kirk and then remodeled for the first Star Trek motion picture in 1979. The ship was destroyed in Star Trek III (oops, forgot the spoiler notice) and was replaced with a similar vessel for movies IV through VI.

But the artwork of the bridge crew at the top of the illustration depicts an entirely different crew on an entirely different ship at an entirely different time: That’s Capt. Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Seems like an awfully silly mistake to make. Especially by someone who’s clearly a Star Trek fan. And on a product that’s clearly aimed at Star Trek fans.

So, how could something like this happened on licensed merchandise? That’s exactly how it happened: This isn’t licensed merchandise.

This T-shirt is for sale at a site called TeeFury. Every day, the site offers a new T-shirt design for one day only. The artwork is submitted by users and is not licensed. In fact, one wonders how TeeFury gets away with what is essentially copyright infringement. I can only imagine:

“I am a corporate lawyer for Paramount Pictures. Take down that T-shirt right away.”

“Absolutely, sir! By the end of today, that page will be gone, gone, gone!”

But still, it’s good for a hump-day laugh on the eve of the new Star Trek movie. Which, by the way, is getting awesome reviews.

Did you do something cool for your features section regarding the new Star Trek movie? Send me a PDF and tell me about it. I’d love to post it here.

Just make sure you have a Star Trek geek look it over before you publish. Please.

A 1988 graduate of the University of Sydney, Ian earned a master’s degree from the University of Technology — also in Sydney — and has worked as a teacher or teacher-librarian, off-and-on, for the past 30 years. He spent four years as editor of the NSW Department of Education and Training’s professional journal, Scan. His professional learning blog, Booked Inn, was nominated for an award a while back. Ian also blogs about Star Trek and science fiction.

That is part of a conversation between William Shatner — the man who played Capt. James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek TV show and movies — and Cmdr. Chris Hadfield, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut currently aboard the International Space Station.

Basically, a fake starship captain just sent a tweet to a real-life space station engineer, who replied using the language of the fake starship captain … and all of us got to see it. And then retweet it.

You’ve seen the guy from the Dos Equis commercials, right? The one they call “the Most Interesting Man in the World”?

He’s an actor, of course. His name is Jonathan Goldsmith.

And he appeared in the very second episode shown of the original Star Trek TV series, on Nov. 10, 1966.

The episode was the Corbomite Maneuver, reports Lauren Davis of i09. That’s the one in which the Enterprise faces down a giant spaceship that looks like a golf ball and Jim Kirk has to bluff his way out of trouble. Goldsmith — who, at the time, went by the name Jonathan Lippe — was only on screen for a moment very early in the story, working in a corridor (right) as a sweaty, shirtless Kirk saunters by.

In full swing right now in San Diego: The annual Comicon International, where my fellow geeks are gathering to discuss, watch previews and shop for memorabilia for their favorite science fiction, fantasy, action and comic-book movies, books and magazines.

And, sure ’nuff, a number of folks dress up for Comicon. Today, U-T San Diego cartoonist Steve Breen focused on all that costumed goodness for his sketchbook contribution.

It’s particularly nice to see Deadman — one of the more obscure DC Comics heroes — at the bottom left. Deadman has long been one of my favorites. His super power? He’s, um, dead. Seriously.

U-T San Diego played that sketchbook page huge across today’s front page.

With thousands of attendees in town for Comicon, U-T San Diego is all over this, with a large chunk of staffers on hand to write and shoot the action and an entire section of its web site for ease in navigating the news.

A highlight, of course, is the photo galleries. Here are three samples from Thursday by UTSD staffer K.C. Alfred…

…is in Small Press, K10. Which is at the intersection of rows 1400 & 5600.

Paul has self-published three collections of Cool Jerk plus one collection of his macabre Doc Splatter strips.

The newest book — OMG Color!, created for last year’s Comicon — was Paul’s first color mini-collection. It includes 27 colorized strips from his first and second books. Plus this charming color illustration.

In addition to these books — and Darlene’s book — Paul is also selling T-shirts, buttons, canvas panel reprints… all sorts of cool swag, in fact.

Naturally — for those of us not cool enough to actually be in San Diego this year for Comicon — these dead-tree publications are available on Paul’s web site as well.

Or how about Barack Obama as a vampire? Apparently, the economy isn’t the only thing sucking these days.

Here’s Ronald Reagan as a mummy. And Bill Clinton as a werewolf.

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Notice that Clinton has a tail. That’s what he was always chasing anyway. So more power to him.

If you’d care to go more retro, you could always buy Richard Nixon as the Creature from the Black Lagoon or John F. Kennedy as the Phantom of the Opera.

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Or how about George W. Bush as a zombie?

Which strikes me as a bit redundant. But whatever.

These poseable action figures are eight inches tall. The downside: They’re expensive as hell. Each sells for $24.99. Find them at collectible toy outlets such as the Big Bad Toy Co. and even at Amazon.

That’s the question I have about the USS Enterprise found on the front page of today’s Courier-Post of Camden, N.J.

Because, as you can see, there’s a part missing from one of the engines.

With only one good engine, the good ship Enterprise will just go around in endless circles, right?

I’m guessing the uncredited photo was shot at the site of this weekend’s Star Trek: The Next Generation convention and then cut out and placed on a star field background. That’s a mounting bracket you see at the bottom — something you never see on TV — and, yes, the cap of one engine nacelle is missing. Time to check between the seat cushions of the car.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 is almost certainly not going to hit the Earth next February. And by “almost certainly”, I mean it: the odds of an impact are so low they are essentially zero. This does not rule out an impact at some future date, but for now weâ€™re safe.

Thursday, Phil posted this great video by an amateur astronomer, Chris Laurel, showing just how close 2012 DA14 will come to Earth next Feb. 15. This runs only a minute-twelve, so please check it out.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, in orbit around the moon since 2009, takes high-resolution photos of Earth’s natural satellite.

Blogger and author Phil Plait — formerly a NASA astronomer himself — strung together hundreds, perhaps thousands of LRO images showing the moon every hour for an entire year — last year, to be precise — into this very cool video that runs just shy of three minutes.

That weird rocking and tilting motion is real. Itâ€™s called libration.

The Moonâ€™s orbit around the Earth is elliptical, so sometimes it moves faster in its orbit than other times. However, the Moonâ€™s spin is constant. The geometry of these two things add together, allowing us to sometimes peek a little bit over the eastern and western horizons. Not only that, the Moonâ€™s orbit is tilted a bit with respect to our Equator, so we sometimes get a little peak over the north and south poles too.

Iâ€™ll note that these views of the Moon are not designed for people at different latitudes; for example, from Australia…

…or, from South Africa…

…the Moon looks upside-down compared to how Iâ€™m used to seeing it in Boulder! Instead, these views show the Moon as if you are at the center of the Earth with your head pointed toward the north pole.

Phil has written two terrific books, both of which I recommend highly.

It’s been a while since I put up a Geekazoid Friday post. So I thought I’d reward myself by showing you this one.

This is a British — obviously — German teacher who posts videos on YouTube under the name Sillysparrowness. Like a lot of folks from the U.K., she’s a fan of the longrunning science fiction TV show Doctor Who.

Her project: Build a lifesize Tardis time machine like the good Doctor uses in the show. One that is foldable — and, therefore, transportable — but one she can set up in under ten minutes.

If you can carve 17 minutes out of your evening, I urge you to give it a look. You’ll be entertained, I promise.

Wasn’t she terrific? If I were the BBC, I’d write a guest-starring role for her in the upcoming season of Doctor Who and have her star either as a mechanic who specializes in care and maintenance of Tardi. Or a crazy fan who falls in love with the Doctor’s Tardis the next time he visits Earth.

Especially if you’re only doing it in comic book form. On the front cover, in fact.

IDW Publishing — creator of Star Trek comic books — is holding a special promotion for local retailers and their customers. They’re asking fans to write 300 words or less why their retailer is the best. The winner will be depicted on a special “variant” cover to issue No. 5 of the comic book series that ties into the most recent Star Trek movie.

The best part, perhaps: The fan will appear in a dreaded red shirt, casting himself — or herself — in front of a phaser aimed at their retailer. If you’re going to die in a Star Trek story, you gotta wear a red shirt, right?

The special cover will be limited to just 300 copies. One hundred will go to the fan, one hundred to the retailer and one hundred to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which aids retailers in various court cases. In addition, the fan will receive the original art, to be drawn by comics artists Rob and Joe Sharp of Sydney, Australia.

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Dirk Wood, IDW’s director of retailer marketing, is quoted in the official release as saying:

As redshirts are famous for always catching the phaser in Star Trek episodes, and as comic fans can be so loyal in defending their local retailer, itâ€™s the perfect contest.

Today, the next of a long line of summer action movies — Cowboys & Aliens, starring James Bond and Indiana JonesDaniel Craig and Harrison Ford — opens in theaters. I’m taking the afternoon off today to see the movie with my daughter, in fact.

Blain Hefner of the Salt Lake Tribune was kind enough to send us the big presentation he built for today’s features front.

UPDATE, 5:30 p.m.: Removed the ad-less page Blain sent me and replaced it with a much higher-resolution version that includes the entire page. Click for a huge view.

Blain notes:

The page is short because there was 6 x 3 ad on the bottom, but I cropped it off in the file I gave you.

And he tells us about the subject:

The main story by Vince Horiuchi is about BYU animation professor Ryan Woodward who has worked on several blockbusters doing storyboard art and animatics. He’s worked on a couple of the Spider-Man movies, Iron Man 2, Cowboys & Aliens and just recently did work on the Avengers. He also recently created the dancing Google logo that celebrated contemporary dancer Martha Graham.

An excerpt from the story:

Raised in Southern California, Woodward earned an associateâ€™s degree at then-Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho) but not a lot of encouragement from his professors.

“My teachers told me, â€˜Donâ€™t go into animation, itâ€™s not a reputable career,â€™” Woodward recalled. “At the time, there were fine artists and illustrators, and animation was still kind of a childâ€™s medium. I told them what I wanted to go into, and they said, â€˜Well, youâ€™re on your own.â€™”

He got his first Hollywood job working as an “effects animator” on animated films such as Space Jam and Osmosis Jones. He drew minor animations, “stuff you donâ€™t pay attention to,” like water splashes, splats, fire, smoke and dust.

I love the photograph of him in his studio. A fun cluttered studio lit right can make for a fun photo to look at. I’d kill to have a Cintiq stylus like his!

Here’s a closer look at the photo by Tribune staffer Francisco Kjolseth. Click to see it larger.

Blain continues:

While we paired the story up with our review of the movie, I decided to keep the layout clean and focused on Ryan Woodward and some of the storyboard art the he produced for the movie, pairing it up with a piece of publicity art that goes with the storyboarded scene featured on the page.

Here are some of the storyboards Woodward created for Cowboys & Aliens. They all look pretty similar, but you can tell from the little shot numbers at the lower right that these are three portions of a longer scene.

Luke Skywalker‘s first lightsaber… The one supposedly owned by his dad (and lost when Luke’s dad cut off Luke’s hand in that fight in the bowels of the cloud city of Bespin).

The actual lightsaber prop used in the first two Star Wars movies was actually part of an old camera. Part of a Graflex flashgun for a “speed graphic” camera, just like those used by photojournalists in the 1940s.

There are different versions of the flashgun, but it’s a 3-cell flashgun with patent #2310165 stamped onto the bottom that was used for the film.

All Graflex’s have a degree of natural weathering from being around for 60 years (which is actually more movie prop realistic being that Luke’s sabers were used and weathered from training). So, the Graflex looks the part of being a real lightsaber that’s served its master well.

It’s just as well the Jedi were hunted into extinction. If they were around today, they’d probably ditch their lightsabers and use their iPhone cameras, applying all those cute little built-in artsy filters.